Thursday, August 9, 2012

Slow changes to solar

It took a long time to make the decision.  Are we going to move and look for a bigger property?  If so when?  Or should we stay, because we're already established, can make do, but need to modify some things to make our house a little more sustainable?

When weighing up and mapping out a realistic 5 and 10 year plan, we realised that we're in a pretty good situation at the moment.  So, let's just improve what we currently have for now.  And the first thing we chose to make-over was our hot water system.



Hot water easily ran out by the end of the day in this house, especially if I chose to hand wash dishes as well.    The system was over 15yrs old and running on off-peak electricity.  So, we've now opted for solar with gas boosted heating.  An expensive decision? Yes! But hopefully it will pay for itself in 4 years .. NOT including price rises which are sure to come. (Don't worry, I'll be keeping an eye on how long it takes to make back what we spent.)


I only hope now that our water usage doesn't double!  Timed showers are still going to be happening here.

The next step would be to see what our remaining electricity usage would be and then consider solar power so we can break even.  We have no time-line for that as yet, as we need to swallow the current expense and save up that buffer again, but we're considering it for the future.

Have you converted to solar power?  What have been your experiences?

Thank you for dropping by!

 

2 comments:

Joyfulmum said...

We haven't just because we're not sure how long more we will be living at this place :) I do have friends that have solar power and it's incredibly cheap apparently :)

i cant decide said...

That's so cool! We don't have much of a solar option here in New Mexico. My hubby is looking into alternatives but we aren't having much luck finding anything so far.